INVISIBLE ENEMY (1938) Alan Marshal, Tala Birell & Mady Correll | Drama | B&W

Invisible Enemy is a 1938 American crime film directed by John H. Auer and written by Norman Burnstine and Alex Gottlieb. The film stars Alan Marshal, Tala Birell, Mady Correll, C. Henry Gordon, Herbert Mundin and Gerald Oliver Smith. The film was released on April 4, 1938, by Republic Pictures.

SYNOPSIS
The film takes place in London and Paris, where Jeffrey Clavering is sent to prevent vital oilfields falling into the hands of a villainous industrialist working for a hostile foreign power.

Jeffrey Clavering is hired in London by The Great Eastern Oil Corporation to go to Paris to prevent unscrupulous industrialist Nikolai Kamarov from gaining control of their oil fields and turning them over to a foreign power.

CAST & CREW
Alan Marshal as Jeffrey Clavering
Tala Birell as Sandra Kamarov
Mady Correll as Princess Stephanie
C. Henry Gordon as Nikolai Kamarov
Herbert Mundin as Sergeant Alfred M. Higgs
Gerald Oliver Smith as Bassett
Ivan Simpson as Michael
Elsa Buchanan as Sophia
Dwight Frye as Alex
Leonard Willey as Sir Herbert Donbridge
Ian Maclaren as Sir Joshua Longstreet
Egon Brecher as Kirman
Frank Puglia as Signor Bramucci

Directed by John H. Auer
Screenplay by Norman Burnstine, Alex Gottlieb
Story by Albert J. Cohen, Robert T. Shannon
Produced by John H. Auer
Cinematography Jack A. Marta
Edited by William Morgan
Music by Alberto Colombo
Production company Republic Pictures
Distributed by Republic Pictures
Release date April 4, 1938
Running time 66 minutes
Country United States
Language English

NOTES
Republic pictures had originally planned a much wider distribution for the film then it ended up getting. Through complications in Republic Film's marketing department, the film ended playing as a B movie for a variety of other films through which it appeared as a double feature, though only in certain regions. According to John H. Auer Republic Pictures "overspent" in Southern California "all of the Southern states" before Herbert J. Yates decided it would have a more limited release. "As a result, the movie got top billing, or at least as close as we got to top billing, in the south and in parts of California, at least around Los Angeles and Bakersfield and so on, and in every Southern media market we had other than Texas. So, Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, it ran as a B movie all the time there, for a while, but we had already spent the money by the time he (Yates) pulled the plug. So instead of it getting a small release everywhere, it got a somewhat big release there and almost no release elsewhere. All of the money that we had left over that we were gonna spend pushing it in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and whatnot, all of that went to Jersey, so it was shown in basically every theater around New Jersey too, but like nowhere else in that region. Goes without saying we were all more cautious before spreading Forged Passport around." Continuing Auer added "So yeah, turned out a lot of folks in Alabama and Georgia and the Carolinas saw it, and some in New Jersey, but not a lot else. But we didn't care, it wasn't a big picture."